30 Day Challenge

southernerinnj

New Member
Do you by chance have a recipe for that pizza? It sounds like it would be good and I like the idea of the whole wheat dough.
 

mike_243

JORBA Board Member/Chapter Leader
JORBA.ORG
Do you by chance have a recipe for that pizza? It sounds like it would be good and I like the idea of the whole wheat dough.

yes if you have the recipe could you post it sound real good....
it would give us a chance to use our pizza stone.:)
 
Coffee-Free Me

Well, I broke the coffee habit. It's been eight days since I've had a cup of coffee. I feel ok, no shakes at all and no cravings either.

It started when we ran out of coffee one day and couldn't make a pot for the following morning. We are sort of coffee snobs and will only drink coffee sold in one particular bagel shop 45 minutes from our house. It took us a few days to make our way out to the shop, so no coffee in the house for a bit. I have no idea what brand it is; the bagel store buys it in bulk and repackages it under their house name. But it is the best coffee I've ever had - an I hope I'll never have it again now that I've somewhat broken the habit. In case anyone is interested, the store is a local chain called Bagels-4-U. They have stores in Hillsborough, Warren, and Branchburg and a few other places, I think. They make a fantastic whole-wheat-everything bagel. Served up with light vegetable cream cheese and its a great breakfast treat.

I am not totally caffeine free yet. I switched to drinking Bigelow Constant Comment tea. It's black tea with orange rind and spice flavors. Yummy! I also drink a pint of water with half a lemon squeezed in it first thing every morning. Honestly, that gets me going better than coffee ever did.

I feel like everything is starting to come together well. I haven't been riding much due to the rain and an up and down work schedule, but I am running 3-4 miles three times a week and I've dropped five pounds in the past week and a half. Woohoo

PS, what happened to all my posts? It says I edited them but I did not, it looks like they've all been erased. Maybe I should change my password and not check the "keep me logged in" box...:hmmm:
 
Rode last night: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2950947.

I felt OK. Forgot the HRM so I don't know what zone I was in but it felt like a good effort. I tried to push myself a bit more than usual now that I feel like I have my legs back to some degree. It was all I could do to keep the cadence up above 90. For most of the ride I was somewhere between 87-92 rpms and riding small gears the whole time. My computer doesn't have an average cadence reading so I don't know what my average rpms were for the ride. I was super slow, averaging 13.4 mph for the ride. It was a hard effort for me, I know some people would consider it akin to a trip up to the corner store for milk but it made me feel great to complete it.

Like anything else, this will get easier the more I do it. I'm starting to drop weight and notice an increase in my energy. The quality of my sleep is improving as well. I sleep better and stay asleep all night, and I'm starting to need less of it. I used to feel tired after 9 or 10 hours, and now 7 or 8 seems to do me just fine.

Today is for active rest - a long walk around the neighborhood and then relaxing poolside for a while, if the rain holds off. Saturday is another long-ish ride, hopefully in the 30-35 mile range if I have the time.
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
My old stomping grounds out there. You should go north, much better biking roads that way IMO.
 
My old stomping grounds out there. You should go north, much better biking roads that way IMO.

North tends to mean hills out here, but I'm hoping to get out that way when I feel a bit stronger. Ron has explored the northern territory near our home and he says the roads are in great condition and make for a good ride. Perhaps I'll brave it on Saturday since I want to do a longer ride. I was thinking of crossing into PA and taking 611 up along the river and diving back into Jersey just north of Easton.
 
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2959190

Rode on Saturday. Not particularly long, and definitely very slow. It was not a quality ride. My legs felts like lead, butt bone was sore and it took me a while to find my rhythm. I took advantage of most downhill sections and coasted, kept my gearing easy and focused on spinning the pain out of my legs. I fought to keep pedaling up even the most moderate hills, and by the time the ride was over I felt completely drained.

Eating has been going well with the exception of yesterday where I snacked most of the day rather than eating actual meals. My weight continues to drop and that is powerful motivation to keep riding and eating well. I thought of something Jake said about not wiping out all the hard work he did on the bike with a dish of ice cream, and I've taken it to heart. Thinking about that helps me control my eating.

I took the day off the bike and off from running and just rested. I feel better today, ready to ride later tonight if the weather holds out. I think I will make tonight's ride a bit shorter, less of a physical and mental challenge so I can stay fresh for the whole trip.
 
Two Weeks Coffee-Free

Two weeks free of coffee. My food has never tasted better and I since I don't find myself lingering over the morning coffee ritual I feel more productive during the day.

Haven't had much time to ride lately, weather, job and home responsibilities are stacked against me but Saturday morning will see me back up and pedaling.

I am not skipping workouts, I've either run 3-4 miles or done 45 minutes on the elliptical trainer everyday since Sunday. Eating is solid, no crap, plenty of veggies, and I'm seeing the result of that on the scale. I've lost 6 pounds in the past 2 weeks. I know that will slow down considerably after these first few weeks but I'm happy the scale numbers are finally coming down.
 
Weigh Every Day?

Another lovely Sunday morning ride. Short but definitely worthwhile: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2996865. About 25 miles all told, a few little hills, mostly flat and easy but I felt great the whole way. I don't get to ride often during the week, so I run instead. I think all of the running I've been doing is making my rides less painful. I still climb hills like a slug, but I am getting to be if not a faster than at least a more consistent slug :)

I've dropped 10 lbs. in the past three weeks, which surprised and delighted me. The magic bullet of "eat less, move more" is working very well. It's a topic of some debate, but I've started to weigh myself every day, first thing in the morning. I have been a bit obsessive about playing the weight loss game with myself. I measure every serving of food I eat, which means no more eating out or getting deli sammiches (which I miss). I write down everything that I ingest from water to energy drinks to the individual components of whole meals. Part of the obsession has become looking at my scale weight on a daily basis to see if what I ate the day before was good or bad for me. I know I won't see significant loss from day to day, but I can tell if what I ate the day before has made me retain extra water or is subject to sitting too heavy in my stomach.

The food journaling and daily weighing are keeping me honest. I've changed the quantity and quality of my daily diet dramatically in the past three weeks and notice that my scale weight might go up and down a bit on a daily basis but on average I am losing weight. What I eat the day before really does affect my scale weight the next day, and how I feel. The increased quantity of veggies is definitely making a difference, and I cannot say enough about the value of my food scale so I can get accurate weights on how much meat or nuts or certain grain products I am eating. By now its almost a way of life and a habit for me to break out the measuring cups and pour my cereal and milk into them before I eat, or weigh my dinner before I sit at the table. Something about this obsession must be right, because I see and feel results.

Also, COFFEE-FREE for one month coming up this Wednesday! I can't believe it. I don't even crave it any longer, though I do love the smell of a good cuppa brewing in the morning. Husband just pours out what is left in the pot when he is done so I won't be tempted by it. Will the next step be to eliminate tea? I don't think so. The taste of it is pleasantly different and it doesn't leave a bad taste in my mouth all day.
 
Husband had an unexpected half-day yesterday so I got to put in 25 miles before work yesterday. Very high quality ride. I aimed for high cadence and to push myself a little harder on the rolling hills. I averaged just under one mph faster than I had on my previous rides. Felt fantastic.

My computer doesn't have an average cadence reading and my HRM is fritzing and not giving me my max/average HR, but I hit about 164 beats and stayed there for some time on the ride, and every time I looked at the computer my cadence was between 88-95. All in all, I am getting stronger and feeling a lot better on my rides.

Next step, longer riding. I am often time-restricted but I am trying to carve out at least an extra hour so I can start getting 10-15 extra miles in on at least one of my weekly rides.

The diet this week has been stellar. No junk at all, plenty of water, veggies, lean protein and fruit. I can't believe I feel this good, and its plenty of motivation to keep on going. I am starting to see muscle definition in my legs again and the layers of baby fat are starting to peel away. I am down 1.8 more pounds this week and have officially passed my pre-baby weight by one pound.

Today is a no-ride day so I ran 4 miles with baby and dog. I love taking them both outside, but the other morning I got to run without them and I notice a big difference in my stride and pace when I can swing my arms and run with my natural gait. Pushing the jogger throws me off a bit and is leaving me with a sore upper body - I am sure it's something I'll stop noticing or learn to compensate for as time goes on.
 
Training has consisted mostly of running or using the elliptical trainer lately. I've had to work every weeknight for the past two weeks, leaving me no time to ride. Weekends have been dedicated to family and house-moving obligations. I'm itching to get on the bike. I'm supposed to tonight, soon as husband gets home. I hope I can keep up the motivation.

I'm getting a little bit down lately. I don't know if its the late nights, long work hours, or lack of proper sleep, but I'm feeling low. I've been keeping track of and measuring all of my food and staying within 23 points a day, but I'm not losing weight anymore. The other day I wanted to defenestrate my scale. It told me I gained six pounds the day after a birthday party where I ate, admittedly, too much food. This stall in weight loss is bringing me down. I weigh too much, my clothes are too big, I'm too slow on the bike. I think I might have to cut my calories even more. I've read and heard before that muscle weighs more than fat, etc., but there is no way I've gained enough muscle to off-set what I should be losing in bodyfat at this point. It's a terrible disappointment to see the numbers on the scale stay the same (or get bigger, in my case) with no discernible reason. This weighting game is f'ing with my head, my self esteem, confidence, and motivation.

I hate being fat. I'm doing all the right things to stop being fat. But I'm still fat. WTF. I feel like I am doomed to this state forever.

I don't despair of ever getting on the MTB again. It's just not been a summer conducive to riding trails. Maybe in the fall when we're settled in the new house I can start riding CR again. I don't even want to think about the new low my skill set has reached, but I'll get back up to par eventually. I just hope my time on the road pays off in terms of endurance and speed.
 

southernerinnj

New Member
Don't despair it will work its way out with the weight loss. I hit many plateaus in my own weight loss and am actually stuck on one now, but I don't count calories like many on here do. I do believe that Norm at one point mentioned something in another thread about remaining at the same count for so long could cause this? Maybe he can chime in about that.

Keep your head up and don't get discouraged you will get there it just takes time!
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Six pounds is nothing. I can gain 6 pounds if I stand in the sun for 2 hours.

You just need to understand that the vast majority of those 6 pounds is water. The birthday party was likely carb heavy, which causes your body to retain water.

I more or less have given up telling people anything about weight loss because for the most part, people don't listen. But do yourself a favor and try to run a 500 calorie or less deficit every day. And eat more of those calories in the middle of the day. I see people post their meals and it looks like this:

Breakfast: 8 calorie wafer, water, black coffee
Snack: grass
Lunch: 100 calories of chicken
Snack: grass and water
Dinner: salad, radishes, 3 baby carrots, water, sniffed some pie
Snack: gnawed on wall, diet wall

Every time I see a list like this, I say to myself "bullshit." I'm not claiming you have done this. I've just seen it time and time again that I need to vent a little about this process. Here's the one you (royal you) can't leave out of the equation:

Snack: Lost my marbles and ate half a gallon of ice cream.

People often forget that little detail.

It's more than likely the case that you're counting food too low, and calories burned too high. Those are critical variables in the 2 variable equation. Make sure you do those correctly.

I came back from Baltimore at 179. I was 175 before the 4 day vacation. I knew it was BS. The next day I was 176, then 175. Go through the routine enough and you'll know it works out. Your body will store water & waste when you tax it (or overfeed it). When you see the +6 pounds you should think, "must burn the engine more" and not "must starve self for 48 hours" like most people do.
 
I came back from Baltimore at 179. I was 175 before the 4 day vacation. I knew it was BS. The next day I was 176, then 175. Go through the routine enough and you'll know it works out. Your body will store water & waste when you tax it (or overfeed it). When you see the +6 pounds you should think, "must burn the engine more" and not "must starve self for 48 hours" like most people do.

You're right, Norm. I weighed in ~163 on Saturday morning, and on Sunday morning scale said I was ~169, hence the six pounds. I did eat too much on Saturday at the birthday party - spanish rice with salty chorizo sausage, birthday cake, and a pint of Yeungling (and only one, it was pancake flat and tasted terrible). I did also eat a big helping of green salad, lightly dressed, with some grilled chicken. No ice cream. Ice cream upsets my stomach too much, so I don't eat it regularly, if at all.

But I did revert to the rabbit paradigm of eating the next day, which was not good. I ate very sparingly at breakfast and lunch and had no dinner of which to speak. I know this is not good, but it felt necessary, like a penalty I had to pay for the previous day's indulgence. Today was not much better. I ate even less food at breakfast/lunch than yesterday.

Today my weight was back down to 164.2 pounds. That is two pounds heavier than my pre-baby weight and about 40 pounds over my goal. I can't get my head off the numbers on the scale; they are the only thing that says I've done anything constructive in terms of my diet and exercise regimen. I need to find the balance: how much food is too much, and how much is too little?

As far as actual calories burned during exercise, I can never really tell. I run, but do I run fast? No, definitely not. Maybe a 10-minute mile pace. That's snail-pace compared to the average fit person. I ride my bike, but what feels hard to me is only a 13.5 mph average. Nothing to it. Two hours on the bike at that pace is the same as a walk around the block. So I can never tell what my actual daily calorie deficit is.
 
Coffee Reversion, and what I've been doing wrong

I have reverted to being a coffee drinker. Demon Brew keeps drawing me back in. It started with a need to perk up one morning when I had to awake at 4:30 am to get ready for work and was not fully functional until I had a good jolt. After that, I had a cup or two before my night shift job to keep myself awake for the duration. This weekend, I was caught up in enjoying a few cuppa while I painted the bedrooms in our new house in-between sharing baby duties with husband. LSS, I am back on "the sauce." I've lost this battle against coffee.

I've taken some time to take a look back at my food logs and the general level of activity and obligations I've had lately. The revelations are not surprising: I'm exercising less and eating more poorly. I'm not eating more food - less, maybe, or at least the same amount of food but in one lump sum rather than portioned out over 5 or 6 meals - but the food I eat is of poor quality and is poorly timed so I feel more hungry and less satisfied by my meals. Yesterday we were painting the house and I did not eat much breakfast, had a spotty lunch (mostly comprised of Doritos) and a big dinner. I felt out of sorts and had a headache all day, and I know it was due to my eating. My diet has been neglected of late and it has been the spur that made most other parts of my life spin out of control.

The second part of my recent issues has been my lack of exercise. I know there are some that could point to my day and say I just did not take advantage of free time in my schedule to exercise, or that I should have scheduled exercise so I would not miss it, but I am not sure it is that easy. I fit in runs when I can, but bike rides have been right-out these past few weeks. Up until Friday night I had a part-time job I worked only at night, but I can't ride during the day since I need someone to watch Little One. Also, I have a new and wonderful job starting soon, and I've been attending some preliminary meetings to get curriculum and thread continuum ingrained in my head so I can best plan my year. I have been busy with packing up the house to move, and still feel like I am not doing enough to keep life moving forward.

This brings me to one thing I've started to recognize lately: My Mind is My Enemy. I think I've known this for a long time, but I'm only now starting to articulate the idea in words and committing the statement to writing so I can be held accountable for it. In my mind, I fail often (even when I succeed.) I have to reprogram myself to see the positives and discard negatives when they cannot teach me something valuable. Am I busy busy right now? Yes. Does it leave me little time to workout? Yes, but it will be over soon and I can mitigate the effects of no exercise with a better diet.

In about two weeks I'll be settled into a new house and a new job, and will develop a new routine around it. It's tempting to think that I can wait until I'm "settled" to start over again, but that's not true. I have to Start Today. So I will. I am. With a good breakfast. And a walk (if not an outright run) before the temps and humidity soar to places that make sitting the shade an uncomfortable venture.
 
got moving today

3.5 mile run today. OK more of a jog. But it was movement and I am glad I got outside.

No riding til after Sunday for me. Will report with pics when I am back in the saddle.
 
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